Chapter 11 #3
Romeo — the son who laughed the loudest, lied the easiest, loved the least.
My stomach heaves, nausea climbing fast.
“Romeo…” The word breaks out of me, cracked and raw. It sounds too small. Too young. Too impossible to be true.
But the ledger doesn’t lie.The slips don’t lie.Giovanni didn’t lie—not about this.
I drag both hands over my face, fingers digging into my scalp as the truth crushes me from all sides.
Romeo betrayed him.Romeo met him the night he died.Romeo stopped whatever “plan” Giovanni was about to execute.
And if that torn slip is right — if the missing half said what I think it did—
Romeo killed him.
My pulse pounds so violently I feel dizzy.
The weight of it — the betrayal,the blood,the truth — slams into me all at once.
And for the first time in my life…
…I don’t know whether I want to throw up—
or kill him.
Someone Is Behind Him
I don’t know how long I stand there staring at Romeo’s name.
Long enough for my eyes to burn.Long enough for the letters to blur.Long enough for anger to crawl up my spine and sink its teeth into the base of my skull.
ROMEO.
My brother.My blood.The son who laughed at everything—especially Giovanni’s worst—like the world was a joke only he understood.
Now his name sits in my father’s private ledger like a brand.
My chest tightens.
Anger hits first—hot, blinding, vicious.Grief slips in under it.Denial wraps around both, whispering, No. Not him. Not like this.
But the page doesn’t care.Giovanni’s handwriting doesn’t lie.
I shove the torn slip back into the ledger before I tear it myself, slam the book closed, and force it onto the shelf with more power than necessary. The sound cracks through the vault—sharp, echoing, final.
That’s it.I can’t stay down here anymore.
I need air.I need distance from Giovanni’s ghost.I need my hands around Romeo’s throat long enough to hear the truth straight from his lying mouth.
I turn toward the door, pulse roaring, jaw clenched until it aches. My boots scrape the cold stone, the hollow sound following me like a second heartbeat.
He warned you, a voice hisses.He told you not to open this place.He knew what you’d find.
My fingers curl into fists.
Good.He should be terrified.
I’m three strides from the door when it hits me.
A shift in the air.Small. Sharp. Wrong.
Too subtle to be sound.Too real to be imagined.
The instinct you only trust after growing up in a house where turning your back meant you were safe—
—or stupid.
The hairs at the back of my neck lift.
I stop.
Silence.
No breathing.No footsteps.Just the low thrum of blood in my ears and the steady tick of my heartbeat.
Then—
A footfall.
Soft.Controlled.Too careful to be Romeo, who moves through life like he owns the floorboards.
Not Pia either.Her movement is lighter, quicker.
This… is someone else.
My spine freezes.
I pivot hard, shifting my weight, hands rising—
—but I’m not fast enough.
A hand clamps over my mouth from behind, iron-tight. Fingers dig into my jaw, forcing my teeth against the flesh inside my cheek.
The other hand — colder, deadlier — presses a blade to my throat.
A precise kiss of metal.One wrong twitch and it’ll open me clean.
My heart doesn’t race.It drops.
Adrenaline hits so fast the edges of my vision sharpen. The vault tightens around me, shelves looming in, ledgers watching like silent witnesses.
“Easy, padre,” a voice breathes against my ear. Low, calm, touched with an accent that slides under my skin like a splinter. “Don’t do anything fucking stupid.”
I inhale through my nose, steady, measured. Not fighting. Not yet. Not until I understand how he’s standing, how he’s holding me, how he’ll cut.
He’s bigger than Romeo, broader.His chest presses into my back, solid and unyielding.
Definitely armed. The knife isn’t cheap—a balanced blade with a grip made for someone who knows what he’s doing. He adjusts it, tightening just enough to remind me I’m a breath away from bleeding out.
Not Dante.Dante represents chaos. Emotion. Noise.
This man is none of that.
He shifts, mouth closer to my ear. I catch the faint mix of gun oil and expensive cologne—foreign, out of place in this church.
An outsider.
Working inside.
Of course.
His thumb digs into my jaw, ensuring I can’t jerk away or bite.
“My employer was very curious,” he murmurs, smooth as poison, “whether the priest would come down here eventually. Whether you’d be too loyal… or too curious.”
Employer.
The word detonates in my skull.
Rocco had a boss.Someone higher.Someone smarter.Someone who knew about this vault.
Someone who knows I opened it.
My pulse jumps, but I force my body loose, pliant—let him think the blade is enough to break me.
“What a disappointment,” he adds lightly. “Giovanni’s son, following the scent like a good little bloodhound straight into the cage.”
I want to wrench his hand off my face, turn, bury my fist in his throat until he can’t speak again.
But the blade digs in — just enough to slice.
A thin line of heat trickles down my neck, sliding along my collarbone.
He leans in until his breath ghosts over my ear.
“Don’t worry,” he whispers. “Kings aren’t the only ones who die down here.”
The blade presses closer.
And for the first time tonight—
It's my life hanging in the balance.